walk like an egyptian

Despite the date on the post, this post was actually written 27 July 2015 because I got behind on posting from the Paris trip last summer, and then I kept not doing it even though it was the last post, and then the guilt hung over me for not doing it so I avoided the blog entirely, and now I am finally doing it because I want to be able to post things again. This means that a lot of the details of the day are fuzzy, but I think I remember enough to give an idea of what we did :)

many steps

The plan for the day involved climbing the towers of Notre Dame, looking at the inside, the Crypts, Sainte-Chapelle and then possibly other things on or off the Ile de la Cité if we had time.

We got to Notre Dame pretty much when we intended - a bit before the towers opened.

This is half the line.

We decided to stand in line and reassess the plan after.

day off

We were starting to get pretty tired, our feet hurt, and my back problems (which had been giving me virtually no trouble for months!) started flaring up again, so we decided that instead of going to the Louvre on Monday and Versailles on Tuesday, we'd take the day off, skip Versailles on this trip, and move the Louvre to Wednesday (when they're open late anyway).  This was, after all, supposed to be vacation.

Lazy mornings are nice.

many instruments

When I was last in Paris, as part of my university's orchestra tour celebrating Berlioz during the summer of 2003, we spent a day at the museum of music at the Cité de la Musique. I remember feeling like I hadn't had enough time there, and that it was really interesting, and wanted to go back.  So G (a nonmusician) indulged me, and we did.

trees, cows and naked ladies

When we arrived at the Musée D'Orsay, about 20 minutes before opening, nobody was there yet. We decided to go around the corner to a café for something warm to drink and a croissant to fortify us for the morning of art. When we came back round the front of the museum at 9:30am for the opening, there was already a moderate line - but luckily we were still in time to not have to wait long.

Musée D'Orsay

arrival

We have arrived.

The train car which brought us from Toulouse to Paris was a sleeper car... it turns out that those uncomfortable sleeper car triple bunk beds can be converted to rather uncomfortable bench seats and a luggage rack. My back really didn't appreciate this, but luckily we only had 5 people in our cabin (the cabin seats six), and G and I had our bench to ourselves... so I spent almost the entire journey laying down with my Kindle.